Former CDC Director Received Death Threats From Scientists for Supporting Wuhan Lab Leak Theory Former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said he has received death threats from fellow scientists after saying he suspected that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory. Redfield told Vanity Fair in an interview published Thursday that he received a significant amount of backlash after he told CNN earlier this year that he is a proponent of the theory the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, contradicting the official narrative espoused by the CCP.